1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method for optimizing the transmission of ATM cells via connection sections wherein, in order to decide which ATM cells stored in waiting ques are to be multiplexed onto further connection sections at a particular point in time, an accompanying piece of connection information and a respectively allocated time mark is stored in a sorted list according to a predetermined ordering rule.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In contemporary packet switching systems, information is typically transmitted in data packets. Using ATM cells as an example, such cells comprise both a header part and an information part. Connection-relevant information is stored in the header part and the useful data to be transmitted is stored in the information part. The actual transmission usually occurs via connection sections between a transmitter and a receiver. The potential therefore exists that a plurality of transmission equipment might transmit their respective cell streams via the same connection section.
In order to be able to implement the transmission of the respective cell streams corresponding to their individual requirements, the prior art has proposed a calendar mechanism. The corresponding relationships are set forth in greater detail in European Letters Patent EP 0 498 092. The call-individually determined transmission bit rate is, thereby, strictly limited by entries in the calendar. However, there exists the problem that calendar increase must be implemented for every time slot. Further, a certain imprecision in the time thus arises, since a plurality of ATM cells is respectively allocated to a time slot of the calendar in this case and might have an unbeneficial influence in dynamic terms.